


Wet clothes and lost cigarettes

by Taeyn



Series: to live forever [3]
Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: First Time Blow Jobs, Implied Past Intimacy, M/M, Sex with Clothes On, and matters progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:38:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9223391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taeyn/pseuds/Taeyn
Summary: I fumbled against the sideboard, hands gripped over the edges. My heart was racing-what if the others come back, what if someone needs a glass of water?Then Henry’s mouth was at my zipper, two fingers loosening my belt, andGod,I thought, I gasped into the silence.Who cares?





	

**Author's Note:**

> from The Secret History- _‘What should I tell you? About the Saturday in December that Bunny ran around the house at five in the morning, yelling “First snow!” and pouncing on our beds? Or the time Camilla tried to teach me the box step; or the time Bunny turned the boat over- with Henry and Francis in it- because he thought he saw a water snake?’_

We walked back up to the house, Henry and I, dripping with muggy water, speckled birch leaves knotted in our hair.

“Sorry! It looked like one though. You can’t say it didn’t look like one.”

Bunny’s apologies were fading out in the background, his clothes sprawled over various branches like a threadbare version of maypole day. He was happy to sun himself dry, the twins were happily reading Plautus’s _Bacchides_ , and Henry seemed fairly content explaining to me that the mating habits of water snakes in fact significantly reduced the likelihood of their activity this far north in spring. Only I was a little miffed that my white necktie had a distinctive amber hue to it now, and my new wingtips were making squelchy sounds with each step.

“Ad astra per aspera,” Henry offered- _to the stars through difficulties_ \- and I saw in him the tacit beginnings of a smile. I huffed a laugh through my nose, then pinched it for lack of anything dry.

“Cucullus non facit monachum,” I returned- _the hood does not make the monk_ \- which was the best I could think of in the moment. _Your dispensations won’t save my tie_ would have been better. To my surprise, Henry’s smile widened, the imperceptible chip in his teeth caught in the light. The humidity licked into my clothes, and I realized I was holding my breath.

-

“Here,” said Henry, and I looked up from the sink. He was holding an old glass bottle- white vinegar, by the whiff of it, and a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ll get another on the weekend,” I said evasively. I don’t know why, the shop was halfway to Switzerland, but Henry ignored me anyhow. He fetched a water jug, measured equal parts powder and liquid, then carefully sunk my tie into the fizz.

“We’ll see how that goes,” he mused, reached for his cigarettes. He had a silver case which he kept next to the kettle, a box of matches leaning neatly at the side.

“No harm in trying,” I agreed, then fumbled around my pockets for mine too. The packet had disintegrated in the soak, and I was left with a few bits of tobacco stuck to my fingers. Henry regarded me with interest, then tucked a second unfiltered paper between his lips, lit them both with his hand cupped around the match.

“Cheers,” I said quietly, taking the smoke when he offered it. _Goodness, what next?_ was what I thought. I had half a mind to say something awfully gauche- _well, let’s get ourselves out of these wet clothes, shall we?-_ when Henry saved me with an inquiring stare.

“It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I laughed, a strange, winded relief pulling at my stomach. Charles, who often turned up on my doorstep when he couldn’t find his own, had less memory of these incidents than he did fondness.

I took a drag of my cigarette, the smoke sweet and harsh at the back of my windpipe. He watched me and I watched him back, the way his right pupil barely dilated with his gaze. His hair was raked across his brow, and a dribble of lakewater traced its way down his cheekbone. I raised my thumb to mend it, if only to see what he would do.

He indulged me. His skin was scarred and marble pale. I let my touch run across his angles, the square, culled line of his jaw. Henry placed his hand on top of mine, my bony knuckles and his large and solid. It was a slow, deliberate gesture, and my pulse fluttered wildly to feel the cool weight of his palm. He guided my thumb into the wet of his mouth, grazed his teeth as he sucked into the softer bridge of flesh. I tried to undo his buttons, my left hand clumsy and trembling. _Nerves_ , I wanted to whisper.

“ _Undress_ ,” was what came out.

Henry let go, exhaled a word low and foreign. For a second I thought I had ruined it, twisted something erratic between what we could laugh away. But then his hand was at the nape of my neck, fingers clenched coarse through my hair. His fist was at his collar and he pulled, his windsor knot making a slick grating sound as it unraveled. I stared at the hollow of his clavicle, the dip at the base of his throat rising and falling with his breath. I swallowed. The ash from my cigarette had burnt down to my fingers. Henry knelt.

“Wait, you don’t have to-” I started, my voice strangled and flighty, sticking to my throat. We hadn’t the first time, all hands and bed sheets, hissed murmurs in the ferns. He peered up at me, surprised, his lips gently parted and his mouth dark within.

“I want to,” he said simply, and, perceiving my ill-experience on this side of things, drew back on his heels. “I would like to,” he rephrased, considering. “If I may.”

I fumbled against the sideboard, hands gripped over the edges. My heart was racing- _what if the others come back, what if someone needs a glass of water?_ Then Henry’s mouth was at my zipper, two fingers loosening my belt, and _God_ , I thought, I gasped into the silence. _Who cares?_

I choked on some obscenity, didn’t know what to hold onto. Henry’s teeth found the line of my briefs and he tugged, a thread of liquid following where my cock had tensed against my stomach. Henry’s nostrils flared as he looked at me, unhurried, ravenous, and I tried not to savor it. How few men had looked at me that way, how fewer lovers. His tongue dragged rough wetness where mine was slippery, and I wanted to tell him all my secrets.

“Oh Jesus,” I heard myself utter, his mouth was wide and searching, his lips a piqued arc as I felt myself swell. Henry made a sound too, an involuntary growl that resonated in his windpipe, hummed deep as all we didn’t know. His warmth enveloped me- tender, at first- then raw and needful, he made my toes squeeze inside my shoes. I gulped a lungful of air, shuddered, doubled over in the thick of the rhythm. I wanted to touch him in some way, my hands were shivering against his shoulders. He moaned and I clutched his shirt, wrenched the fabric where it plastered to his ribcage. His chest was heaving as he pinned me to the cupboards, the wooden drawers rattling as he moved back and forth, in and out. He was panting, relentless, and I was sweating beneath my stuck clothes, my jaw gritted and my eyes wide.

“Please, yes,” I managed, I was making no sense, whining and gaping and seeing tiny bright speckles where sunlight filtered in the window. He flicked a glance up at me, and, as much as you can in that condition, lent me a glint of a smile. I laughed something breathless and savage, tears blurred at the corners of my eyes. Vous êtes à moi, nous sommes ici, c'est le nôtre.

_You are mine, we are here, it is ours._

Henry stopped, he rose and lifted me bodily up, his mouth smudged untidy, exhaling below my jaw. I placed my hands at the sides of his face, his scent of ink and charcoal. His eyelids fluttered closed and it charmed me terribly, his kiss was unforgiving. I drew him in, his thigh against my hips, broad shoulders tipped ever so slightly forward, I was not near his height. An aching groan escaped me when I felt the press of his cock, his trousers dented with the shape of it. His mouth twitched as I traveled my palm over his length, a snarl unfurling, tightening, yielding.

My slacks were tangled at my ankles and I made short work of his. He closed his arms around my lower back, the dewy warmth of our legs prickling syrup through my veins. It felt like that, it felt like everything, he hoisted me onto the counter, my calves wrapped over his shoulders. I must’ve been shaking, for he let his gaze linger.

_Yes?_

Yes.

Henry slipped two of his fingers into his mouth, dragged them out moist and supple. His nails were well-manicured, masculine, every detail of him seemed to tremor and grow. He smoothed his fingertips around my opening, one and then the other, listening as my sips of air drew heady, my moans nervous and encouraging.

“Francis,” Henry murmured, hair falling over his eyes as he leaned down.

I blinked.

“I like this.”

He didn’t expect an answer and I couldn’t help a smile. He eased a finger inside me and I bared my throat, shut my eyes. He followed with the second, stroked me until I made a guttural whimper, my muscles unwound at the hilt of his hand. I could feel my thighs flinching in anticipation, and the awareness of it embarrassed me, I wanted to apologize. Henry sated me with a glance, took my hand to his chest. I could feel his heart beating there- pounding, even- and the violence of it shocked me, his face was so grave. When I couldn’t hold on any longer, he reached our hands downward, my fist closed around the base of his cock. Wordless, I asked, I arched, I steered him toward me, hard and leaking over my knuckles.

It stung at first, I’m not so jaded that it didn’t, I felt bruised from the inside out. But it was the kind of bruise that bled into something visceral, our bodies turning each other’s corners, spilling into the gentler curves. I liked when his upper lip hitched back, crude and animal, I liked the unfettered howls and marks I sucked on his skin. When my breathing grew reckless he snatched his hand to my cock, gripping firm and driving his fist in time with his thrusts. I clapped a hand over my mouth to dampen my cries, but Henry tore it back, pressed our foreheads together as he snarled for air. The last thing I saw was his face, his mouth grimaced open, eyes squeezed taut and fierce. Our shouts twined and shattered, and I felt a surge of wet heat across my shirt, a hiss and a gasp and another, my limbs seizing and buckling with the force of the release. Henry collapsed into me, his hand streaked and glistening. I wondered if the world had devoured us whole.

Later, when the five of us sat in the sitting room, lemon-yellow wallpaper curdling to the shade of oak whiskey, Henry looked at me. He’d been reading Camilla’s text over her shoulder, his glass balanced on the side of his knee.

“Ah,” he said, almost to himself, catching some passage he’d been searching for. “There, IV-7-18. Quem di diligunt adulescens moritur- _he who the gods love dies young._ ”

“Best keep a low profile then. Mind your P’s and Q’s.” Bunny winked, still keen to make amends for the rowboat.

“Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt,” Charles offered. _Mortal actions will never deceive the gods._

“Fatis reminiscitur,” Camilla said to Henry, her voice husky as mist. _But fate remembers them._

I sucked my knuckle, slippery from the ice in my glass. The sun was setting, and this wouldn’t be our last ritual of the night. “Amor omnibus idem,” I said.

_And love is the same fate for all._

_-_


End file.
